Former California Sen. Barbara Boxer said she was so upset with the result of November’s presidential elections that she physically couldn’t pick herself up off the floor that night. Then, she said, she realized she had to keep living her life and moving forward.

She said she told TV-personality Chelsea Handler the same thing when she went on her program the next day and she repeated it again for the crowd assembled at Smoke Tree Ranch in Palm Springs Wednesday.

“There’s always people who will try to shut us down,” she said. “If we allow ourselves to get mad and sad and shut down it’s our own fault.”

Boxer, who served as senator for more than two decades, was the feature of a Palm Springs Library Foundation fundraiser Wednesday, giving an impassioned speech during cocktail hour and and signing copies of her latest book after dinner.

In a wide-ranging speech before dinner, Boxer addressed everything from her life after Congress – busy with her newly formed Super PAC and an upcoming series of speeches – to the electoral college – “a terrible mistake our founders made,” she said.

She also made clear that while she has left office, she has not left public life or the fight for causes she believes in, including climate change and LGBTQ and women’s rights.

“I’m always going to be a senator, I was there so long,” she said. Boxer later said she didn’t miss the Senate and felt she could accomplish more as a citizen activist than she could in office.

This article is part of the Insider column, a weekly roundup of political and public policy news. The full column runs every Sunday in The Desert Sun. Reach the author at Corinne.Kennedy@DesertSun.com.